CROSS BORDER CULTURAL PROJECTS.

The Vision of Klaster Studios is to provide Cross Cultural Co-operation across International borders, through Art and Music and to create a forum for the mutual understanding of different Cultural Heritages.

The founder of Klaster Studios is based in Liverpool and Nepomuk, and is a professional musician, singer, composer, and teacher.

Art and Music are a Universal language. They communicate where words cannot or do not. In this way Art and Music communicate universally like an unseen power. We experience this Universal force from the perspective of our own Cultural Heritage.

Klaster Studios has restored some of the spaces in The Monastery and events there in 2017 as part of Project Nepomuk involved only a few artists in an informal setting.

The Czech Republic is becoming increasingly a choice for people to live, away from the constraints of over commercialism. Cultures sometimes can forget the good things in life, the quality of living.

There is already a sizeable expat community in the area, where people have decided to live out the rest of their lives. Prague (below) has always been a melting pot for people from around the world.

THE CULTURE OF THE AREA

Nepomuk already has a vibrant artistic and cultural heritage.

One of its most notable sons of Nepomuk was the painter Augustine Nemejc (1861-1938). His house is now a museum devoted to his work, restored by the European Fund for Regional Development at a cost of 27 million crowns (1 million pounds). Augustine Nemejc painted the curtain at the Plzen Opera House.

http://www.augustin-nemejc.cz/augustin-nemejc-a-native-of-nepomuk/

There is a wonderful museum dedicated to telling the story of St John of Nepomuk, a very interesting Town Museum, and a Veteran Car museum.

There are many festivals in the area. On 16th May the festival of St John takes place. There is a weekend of car trials at nearby Kramolin.

A 2 day festival takes place in the castle at Zelena Hora every July.

This was the film location for the Czech TV series The Black Barons (Cerny Baroni), picture to the right here, and the horror ghost hunter series of John Sinclair, and the Jacques Ertaud film Catherine the Courageous in 1993. Here was where the Green Mountain Manuscript which inspired Smetana’s opera “Libuše”.

Beer and Music festivals are regularly staged. The area is well known for its alcoholic beverages, with Pilsner Urquell being made in Plsen only 30 kilometres away. Bozkov brandy, Bohemian Sekt are made in the area. The near village of Prado produces absinth and vodka.

If there were a capital city of legendary in the Czech Republic, the town of Nepomuk would be a hot contestant for the honour. There are said to be graves that glow when someone’s about to die, a landscape littered with the petrified cattle of a greedy pagan and the ghost of an evil musketeer who walks the earth with the still-ferocious spectre of his dog. The official population of Nepomuk may be 3,700, but that’s only if you count the living.

Prague is not too far away, with its amazing cultural heritage and wonderful buildings.